In other announcements no one asked for, The View co-hosts shared their fantasy team of presidential debate moderators on Tuesday’s show. Perhaps not surprising, more CNN hacks made their dream list than actual ABC journalists!
This discussion was prompted by President Trump accepting popular podcast host Joe Rogan’s invitation to appear on his show for a presidential debate with Joe Biden (Biden has not accepted). Co-host Meghan McCain loved it, saying how much of a fan she was of Rogan before blasting the debate moderator lineup:
MCCAIN: I was personally very disappointed with the debate moderator choices. I'm very disappointed in the way our media has been questioning both of these candidates. I think we deserve better. These are uncomfortable and very dangerous times. I think we should be asking both of these candidates uncomfortable questions. The idea we'll have old school journalists, no disrespect to those chosen, who only get one hour and we can't stream is really, I think, not going to be sufficient especially in the era of COVID when we have had so much of a back bump of not being able to get the kinds of answers from both candidates that we need. So I think that's why this Joe Rogan conversation has gained so much traction and attention online. I would love to see it happen. I think there's no way it will be happen. I do think if President Trump ends up doing an interview with Joe Rogan it could end up being very fascinating and a game changer.
But Sunny Hostin pulled out all the cards whining that Rogan was “racist” “sexist” and “homophobic” so he wasn’t fit to be a debate moderator. Hostin made similar complaints about Barstool's Dave Portnoy on the show, back in July, after President Trump sat down for an interview with him, for which he pushed back on saying she lied about him.
Instead, Hostin argued that journalists like ABC’s Linsey Davis, who moderated a 2019 primary debate, Gwen Ifill, the former PBS Newshour anchor who died in 2016, and CNN’s Anderson Cooper would have made her list of debate moderators:
I think that journalists should be hosting these debates. I think that we had someone like Linsey Davis of ABC who did a spectacular job hosting the debates. I saw Anderson Cooper--I thought he did an excellent job. So there are journalists who are quite capable. I remember when Gwen Ifill did a wonderful job.
During the DNC, Davis praised Biden as “sincere and genuine." Ifill had a long record of partisan journalism propping up Democrats. As for Cooper, he gave Biden an open forum to claim Trump was “rooting” for violence and wouldn’t fact-check the candidate on his false claims when Cooper interviewed him just a few weeks ago.
Co-host Joy Behar proposed her own CNN hack, The Lead host Jake Tapper as her choice, before picking The View hosts themselves!
“I would like to see Jake Tapper do it. I think he’s been an incredible journalist. He confronts them with their lies. I like that. Or The View. Maybe we could do it. That would be something,” she gushed.
Whoopi Goldberg said that Trump and Biden should go on The Breakfast Club radio show to have a debate.
“I think everybody should go on the Breakfast Club and start with that if you want to shake it up, and visit lots of different arenas to have these debates,” she proposed.
McCain agreed, gushing that host Charlamagne tha god, (who demanded Biden promise slavery reparations) had asked “the best political questions of this cycle” before asking, “What does it say about our political media?”
Whoopi argued that candidates should face both nontraditional media and journalists for debates. “I don’t see why we can’t do both,” she said.
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